Custom Lithium Battery Pack Guide: What to Specify

A custom primary lithium battery pack is built to order, so the order itself is the specification. The packs on this site are built around ER cells at 3.6V, with series and parallel structures such as 1S1P and 2S2P, nominal capacity from 1,200 to 19,000 mAh at category level, shelf life of more than 10 years, self-discharge of no more than 1 percent per year, and an operating temperature range from -55 to +85 degrees Celsius. Those are category-level figures; the specification of any individual pack is confirmed per order.

When requesting a pack, specify the following items. First, voltage and capacity: the voltage the device requires and the energy budget over the required service life. Second, structure: whether cells are arranged in series, parallel or a combination, and what physical shape the pack must take. Third, pulse requirements: whether the device draws steady current or short, high pulses, because high pulse loads may call for a hybrid pulse capacitor pack instead of a plain ER pack. Fourth, operating temperature range at the installation site. Fifth, connector or lead type, and any housing or mounting constraints. Sixth, certification documents required for the destination market; certificates are available upon request.

Two cautions apply. Pack prices and lead times are confirmed per order; this site does not publish pack prices, and it does not state a single lead-time figure, because the company's own published lead-time statements differ between its pages. And pack specifications should be confirmed against the final datasheet before mass production, just as for individual cells.

The company's own published case examples, reported as company statements, include a custom CR123A pack for a home fire and water-damage protection system in North America, a custom ER14505 pack for GPS asset tracking in South Africa, and a custom ER14505 pack for an IoT device in Europe. No customer names are given in those examples, and none are given here.

Related pages: Primary Lithium Battery Packs, Hybrid Pulse Capacitor Packs, ER14505.